![]() I needed someone like Booker to write and arrange. These are complicated songs they have a lot of chords in them. ![]() “I had had the idea for some time but until I met Booker, I wasn’t really sure in my mind how well I could do these songs because of my limited musical ability, as far as writing down songs of this caliber. In an interview with the magazine’s Chet Flippo, Nelson acknowledged the major gamble he was taking with the LP. Stardust would coincide with Nelson’s first appearance on the cover of Rolling Stone in 1978. ![]() “He won,” Nelson said, adding, “But the next time we’re gonna turn the lights on.” The comment earned a hearty laugh from Charles, as can be seen in the clip below. But Nelson and Charles also played behind the scenes, too, enjoying a rivalry at chess that Nelson joked about during the special. The pair’s performance of “Georgia on My Mind” was a highlight of the program, as the two longtime friends sat together at the piano to trade vocals on the song, as seen above. In 1985, Nelson teamed with Charles during a Nashville Network concert simply titled The Willie Nelson Special. Most impressively, however, Stardust logged 540 weeks on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart, eventually dropping off the survey a full decade later in 1988, by which time Nelson was a bona fide American legend. A year after its release, Nelson’s version of the song earned a Grammy for Best Male Country Vocal Performance. With Stardust, Nelson the hit songwriter was completely absent, which meant that his interpretive skills were allowed to fully flower on songs such as “All of Me,” “Moonlight in Vermont,” and “Blue Skies.” Following Nelson’s version of “Georgia on My Mind,” which would reach Number One in June, becoming only the third of the Texas native’s solo hits to top the chart, “Blue Skies” became another country chart-topper, which made Stardust Nelson’s first LP to produce more than one Number One hit. The album’s first single, Nelson’s passionate reading of the Hoagy Carmichael classic “Georgia on My Mind,” was released March 2nd, 1978, 42 years ago today. Nelson, meanwhile, could be seen as sort of taking that song’s message to heart with his follow-up album which, on the surface anyway, would seem to appeal less to cowboys than to “doctors and lawyers and such.” Released April 19th, 1978, Stardust offered Nelson’s interpretations of American pop standards. Their Waylon & Willie LP had spawned a massive hit with “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys,” which enjoyed a four-week run at the Number One spot. In early March 1978, Willie Nelson was atop Billboard’s country albums and country singles charts with friend and frequent duet partner Waylon Jennings. ![]()
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